4 months ago

4 months ago

4 months ago

4 months ago

Since it was supposed to be played last night, people have probably figured out by now that the game featuring Michigan State and Rutgers was postponed due to the blizzard that decimated the northeastern part of the country over the last couple days. The game is being pushed to Thursday, which may give the Scarlet Knights some time to heal from a rash of injuries to their perimeter. BishopDaniels is nursing a strained hip flexor, while freshman Mike Williams is dealing with a sprained ankle that will keep him out of action for up to two weeks. Whether or not Daniels plays or not, forward Junior Etou will be back in the lineup after missing a game due to a team disciplinary issue.

Another freshman is dealing with an injury issue as well, although this one is a starter for a nationally ranked team. Indiana guard Robert Johnson suffered a knee injury in a rather unique fashion in Sunday’s tilt against Ohio State. Coach Tom Crean stated that the team’s fourth leading scorer still may play tonight when the Hoosiers travel to West Lafayette to face Purdue. Indiana has no chance against Purdue’s size, so it will have to bomb away from deep if they want to get a crucial road win. If Johnson can’t go, the onus will fall on Nick Zeisloft or Stanford Robinson to pick up the slack.

The Purdue–Indiana game will feature as big of a contrast in terms of size that will be seen this season. Purdue will try to bang away inside with behemoths Isaac Haas and AJ Hammons. Indiana will counter with a much quicker lineup featuring no player taller than 6’7″. This makes what usually is one of the better rivalries in the league even more interesting this time around. Neither team really has an answer for the strong spots of the other team. It’s worth watching as well because a Hoosier loss would give each team an identical 5-3 conference mark.

The other game tonight features two desperate teams looking to string together some wins to jump up from the bottom of the league standings. Minnesota travels to Penn State, where they’ll need another effort like his 12-point, 13-rebound from Maurice Walker. He’s one of the best post players in the league, albeit in a league where there aren’t many who can punish teams offensively on the block. He doesn’t always play with the aggressiveness the Gophers need, which made his efforts Saturday a big reason why they were able to beat Illinois. Penn State has some depth on the block, but Walker has the advantage over the trio of Donovon Jack, Jordan Dickerson, and Julian Moore. If the senior can continue to dominate on the low block, Minnesota can still make some noise before March.

Nebraska continued to struggle on the road, as they lost by double-digits to a depleted Michigan team Tuesday night. Coach Tim Miles was succinct in his analysis, stating that ” they outcompeted us, they outexecuted us and we didn’t show much heart.” Whether or not the team was overconfident in seeing that Derrick Walton Jr would miss the game, they simply didn’t get anything done offensively. The Cornhuskers struggle sometimes even when Shavon Shields and Terran Petteway are at their offensive peak, but when they combine to go 5-for-23 from the field it’s a wrap. This team has to prove it can win on the road, and needs to do it quickly. It looked like things were starting to trend upward after winning four out of five games, but this result really makes it difficult to imagine them making a repeat NCAA Tournament appearance.

Rutgers has won one more Big Ten game than most people would have guessed after the Scarlet Knights shocked Penn State on Saturday at the RAC. It wasn’t the prettiest of games, or even in the top trillion of prettiest games, but they defended when it counted and shut down Nittany Lions star, DJ Newbill. The result mirrored a non-conference season in which Rutgers won a couple of games that it shouldn’t have won, lost a couple of games that it shouldn’t have lost, and has looked equal parts horrific and pretty good seemingly on a possession-by-possession basis. Coming off of a season where this team went 12-21 in the American, count yours truly amongst those who thought they would struggle mightily in their first season in the more difficult Big Ten. This year’s conference isn’t nearly as strong as it usually is, however, and Rutgers isn’t nearly as terrible as it was last season. Here’s a glimpse at some of the ups and downs of Rutgers’ season to date.

Eddie Jordan has his team playing much better on the defensive end of the floor this season. (USATSI)

On the positive side, Rutgers has notched wins against a 10-3 Vanderbilt team and at a Clemson team that has beaten LSU and Arkansas. It also did a really nice job on Saturday in its win against Penn State, holding the Nittany Lions to 28.8 percent shooting. The Scarlet Knights’ biggest accomplishment, though, could be how they actually led a still-unbeaten Virginia team by a point at the half on November 29. Granted, Eddie Jordan’s team only scored eight points in the second half on its way to a 45-26 loss, but it held one the country’s most efficient offenses to 0.83 points per possession by cutting off any quality looks. Big men Greg Lewis (6’9″, 245 pounds), Kadeem Jack (6’9″, 235) and Junior Etou (6’7″ 230) clog things up in the paint, which allows the guards to extend to the three-point line — the Rutgers defense allows opponents to shoot only 30.2 percent from behind the arc and 44.2 percent on two-pointers — both among the top 80 in the country.

Rutgers and Maryland enter the Big Ten fray after playing last season in the AAC and the ACC, respectively. While college basketball fans probably know something about Maryland from their time as an ACC heavyweight, those outside of the New York/New Jersey area that follow the B1G might not know quite as much about the Scarlet Knights. Personally, when I think Rutgers basketball, I think of this. It probably isn’t a good thing for someone as basketball-obsessed as me to think about a Saturday Night Live sketch when thinking about that program. That said, it’s a new season in a new league for the former members of the Big East and the AAC. Here’s some quick information about the program to get Big Ten fans ready for the newcomers.

Eddie Jordan is in charge of trying to get Rutgers basketball back on solid ground after the Mike Rice tenure. (USATSI)

Last Season: The Scarlet Knights went 12-21 overall and 5-13 in the AAC. They were 6-7 in the non-conference portion of their schedule, losing to William & Mary and Farleigh Dickinson at home — for some context, Iowa beat Farleigh Dickinson 92-59. They started out 4-7 in conference play with their most impressive win coming when they beat Houston 93-70. They won a game in the AAC Tournament before bowing out to Louisville 92-31. They averaged 105.7 points per 100 possessions, which ranked 145th in the country. Only Illinois and Northwestern had worse per possession offensive numbers among Big Ten teams. They struggled even more on the defensive end, where they gave up 106.3 points per 100 possessions. That mark would have been dead last in the B1G, as only Iowa at 102.7 was in the same ballpark.

When we mentioned Junior Etou in this space earlier this season we were talking about his NCAA eligibility and figured after we would never mention him here again. It turns out we were wrong, but not for a reason that we could have ever predicted. Now it appears that Etou (or more specifically his high school) misrepresented his age and he was playing high school basketball as a 20-year-old. From the little that we have read about this case it does not appear to be as egregious as the infamous Jerry Joseph case, but it makes Bishop O’Connell High, a nationally respected high school program, look bad. It appears that this development is completely unrelated to the issues that led to his six-game suspension, but the start to Etou’s college career has been one of the more bizarre ones that we have seen.

Towson’s turnaround under Pat Skerry has been nothing short of remarkable. After a 3-2 start that includes a win over Temple, the Tigers will have to overcome a bit of adversity after they suspended starting point guard Jerome Hairston indefinitely for “conduct detrimental to the team”. Hairston, a sophomore was a CAA All-Rookie selection last season, has seen his scoring drop from 9.9 points per game to 5.5 this season. While the loss of a starting point guard is never a good thing, the timing works out well for the Tigers as they have almost six weeks until they start conference play.

While most people have been focusing on fouls and the new rules, one of the things that has caught our eye is the change in pace at Wisconsin. As Seth Davis notes the up-tempo attack is not new to Bo Ryan even if most people associate him with a slow, methodical style based on his time at Wisconsin. Ryan is probably right in that he builds his game plan around his personnel, but he also has some say in what time of player he recruits. We will be interested to see in the coming years if Ryan continues with this trend and personnel going forward or if he reverts to the style that has served his so well during his time in Madison.

We are just getting started with the 2013 version of the Maui Invitational, but on the 30th anniversary of one of the best in-season tournaments around it is as good a time as any to look back at the history of the event. In a weird way, the defining moment of the event has been Chaminade knocking off #1 Virginia in 1982 in a game that was not part of the tournament, but served as the impetus for it. However, to limit the event’s history to a game that wasn’t even part of the event would be greatly underselling the magnitude of some of the early-season games played there. So we were happy to see that they seem to have put together an outstanding field for 2015, which will be headlined by Indiana, Kansas, and UCLA. Between those three schools, they have 18 championships, which tops any event that we are aware of including the so-called Championship Classic.

There were so many things happening over the weekend that we neglected to mention that Sunday night was the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the class of 2013. Given the depth of accomplishments of those getting inducted we hesitate to call anybody the headliner, but if we had to select someone it would probably be Elvin Hayes. It seems like as time has gone on Hayes’ place in history has largely been diminished because he does not fit into any of the neat historical narratives even if he did knock off Lew Alcindor and UCLA in the “Game of the Century” back in 1968. We want to congratulate all nine individuals and the team (1963 Loyola-Chicago) that were inducted for their accomplishments.

You might have noticed that Friday was the start of the college basketball season. Despite all the hype surrounding it as usual we would advise you to not get too worked up over any of the results, but if you need a recap of some of the sights and sounds surrounding the night’s events, we suggest you check out our post on it from Saturday. None of the games over the weekend produced any particularly shocking results although there were a few interesting results that could have implications down the road (like Oklahoma’s win over Alabama), but that should change later today with the 24 Hours of Hoops kicking off (here is the full schedule if you need a refresher).

Southern Methodist‘s chances of surprising teams in the AAC took a hit over the weekend as Jalen Jones, who led the team in scoring and rebounding last season, announced that he was transferring. As we have stated before several times on this site, Larry Brown has brought a lot of good to the SMU program including making them a player in national recruiting particularly with top Texas recruits. However, the other thing it has added to the program is a measure of unpredictability with players competing for minutes and nobody being sure of their role. Our question is if the top player on the team transfers because he is unhappy with his role on the team how many other players are questioning their role on the team.

Rutgers finally got news from the NCAA that freshman forward Junior Etou was ineligible to play the first six games of this season for reportedly accepting impermissible benefits last year. Etou, the first high schooler to commit to Rutgers after the Mike Rice incident, is originally from Congo and according to the NCAA the “benefits” he received were from overseas. Based on what we have heard out of Rutgers it appears that they will not try to appeal the ruling. Fortunately for the Scarlet Knights their first six games are against relatively easy competition before they play (out-of-conference) Seton Hall. Yes, that last sentence felt weird.

Coming into the season as the defending national champs we knew there would be quite a bit of focus on Louisville (even if they are only the second-most interesting team in their state). What we didn’t know was how much of that attention would be focused on the “off the court” stuff. We all knew that Kevin Ware and his return would make news, but didn’t expect him to be back in two weeks. A return at that time would come during an easy stretch for the team and would allow them to ease him back into the lineup without much problem. The more interesting return is that of Chane Behanan, who just a short time ago was off the Louisville team before he miraculously returned to Rick Pitino’s good favor. Behanan returned to practice on Friday and sat on the team’s bench on Saturday. Given how quickly Pitino has changed his mind on Behanan (and other matters) we would expect to see him playing in the very near-future.

Lost amid all the Friday afternoon season opener chatter was a key ruling in the Ed O’Bannon likeness case against the NCAA. Federal district judge Claudia Wilken partially certified the plaintiff’s class action request made over the summer, allowing for all current and future student-athletes to join the case. The judge, however, denied certification to all former NCAA student-athletes other than the ones already attached to the case (O’Bannon, etc.), potentially saving the NCAA from the astronomical multi-billion dollar payout it could have faced. As Michael McCann explains in the well-written SI.com piece, there are good and bad implications to both sides as a result of this decision, and it also means with the scope of economic risk now settled that there’s a far greater likelihood of each side beginning to look at settlement options. Trial is scheduled to begin in June 2014.

Our team preview style has been heavily cribbed from the microsite writers over in the Pac-12. We love them and assume they would take our attempt at loose imitation as flattery and not plagiarism.

Rutgers

Strengths: It was a bit surprising to see the conference’s coaches pick the Scarlet Knights to finish dead last this season because the team has one of the better and more experienced backcourts in the conference. No, they won’t enjoy the fruits of Eli Carter’s labors, but Myles Mack is a fearless scorer who can pick up some slack, and Jerome Seagears has plenty of potential if he can become a more efficient offensive player. Coach Eddie Jordan will also be in charge figuring out how to fit junior college transfers D’Von Campbell and Kerwin Okoro into the backcourt rotation, but those are four high-major talents to anchor the team’s guard play, and that doesn’t count Malick Kone, who is an experienced role player and adds depth. The Scarlet Knights were a relatively efficient offensive unit last season despite playing a slowed-down style. The pace won’t be much different this year as Jordan favors a Princeton-style offense, but the coaching staff has the tools and the talent in the backcourt to make it work.

Wally Judge Is Going Have To Come Up Huge In Rutgers’ Frontcourt This Season (Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto)

Weaknesses: The frontcourt has talented pieces like Kadeem Jack and Wally Judge, but they don’t have any true interior presence. Jack and Judge are big bodies whose styles are better-suited on the wings than in the post, and there is no one on the roster to protect the rim and nobody averaged more than Judge’s 5.4 rebounds per game. The good news is that the conference is backcourt-heavy when it comes to talent and Jordan’s starting lineup should be pretty competitive, but depth in the frontcourt and the team’s ability to defend against opponents like Montrezl Harrell and TaShawn Thomas and all of the lightning-quick guards who like to attack the hoop mean that the offense will have to shoulder a heavy burden, which is not likely given the style of play expected.

The annual McDonald’s All-AmericaGame was played on Wednesday night, and fresh Arizona commitment Aaron Gordon was named the game’s MVP. Gordon scored 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the West to a 110-99 victory. Washington signee Nigel Williams-Goss was the West team’s best player off the bench, scoring 10 points and dishing out six assists. Jabari Bird, who is headed to California in the fall, added nine points in just 13 minutes of action.

The Huskies still have one available scholarship for next season after Gordon spurned Lorenzo Romar for Arizona. The Husky Haultakes a look at where that extra scholarship should go in this piece. LoRo will likely go the JuCo route, opting for a post player with maturity and experience. Remi Dibo or Octavious Ellis would both be solid options for the Dawgs, a pair of face fours that would add a great scoring punch after the departures of Scott Suggs and Abdul Gaddy. As the article states, if Romar wants to add a player straight out of high school, LennardFreeman or Junior Etou would likely be the only options.

I still find this story ridiculous, but after yesterday’s complaining from Florida Gulf Coast athletic director Ken Kavanagh, USC has backed off the use of the “Dunk City” phrase. Stating that the moniker belongs in Florida, athletic director Pat Haden says that the Trojans are going to create their own cute phrase. Andy Enfield signed a six-year deal with the Trojans on Monday.

Keeping it in the Southland, USC officially introduced Andy Enfield as its new head coach on Wednesday. While speaking at the introductory press conference, Pat Haden listed Enfield’s ability to develop talent and his up-tempo style of play as the main reasons he wanted the former FGCU head man so badly. Haden mentioned bringing the Trojans program back to relevance, and resetting the basketball culture from the slow-down style of Kevin O’Neill is of highest priority. Whether you agree with the qualifications of Enfield to become a Pac-12 head coach, there’s no question he has brought excitement back into the SC program. And that’s important, because it was slipping quickly.